Winter Birds

After Christmas dinner at my Aunt Nancy's house I was quickly taken in by playing with my new Olympus e-pm1 and several of the lenses I had brought with me.  My aunt had several bird feeders placed near windows of her house, so all the hungry birds were easy targets for my camera.  Plus, photographing the fast moving birds was great practice for capturing pictures of other wild animals on future trips to the woods.

Cardinals are a great photograph during the winter.  Easy to attract with nearly any brand of food, their red plumage stands out in stark contrast to winter's blanket of snow.  This guy was a bit bashful and tried to keep his head behind the feeder, but I did manage to capture this nice photo.  The 14-42 lens that came with the Olympus worked flawlessly capturing the cardinals colors.

Here several chickadees were being much more cooperative for their portrait.  All four positioned themselves well and the picture was easily framed.  Leaving the 14-42 lens in place and switching to the full auto mode, the quick chickadees were captured as if they posed for the shot.

Finally, I broke out the telephoto lens.  I haven't purchased a proper 50-150 specifically made for my Olympus's Micro 4/3's platform, but I was able to find an adaptor to make an old 50-200 Pentax fit on the camera.  Works great.  Biggest downfall is the e-pm1 doesn't have an optical viewfinder, so you are stuck using the LCD screen to tell if you're in focus or not.  In the photo above I was able to capture a little woodpecker hanging on a suet feeder.  I wish the sky wasn't so overcast, because the focus on the bird is very nice, and on a brighter day I think the bird would have popped more in the photo.

All in all I'm still thrilled with the camera, and for an outdoorsman, and a family-man, I really think that this camera will suit my needs for several years to come.

Happy Exploring
Scott M